Holiday Gift List for [approximately] 1 year old children.

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With all the sales this weekend, it’s the time to shop! The holidays always bring so much excitement but can also bring challenges on managing what and how many gifts are purchased that need to be fit into a home (and are truly necessary without creating too much excess – this is a huge goal of ours if you can’t tell!). Here is a list of gifts that are great for little ones around 1 year of age.

Play Kitchen:
Pottery Barn Chelsea Alll-in-1 Play Kitchen. This kitchen is just beautiful and so well constructed. An item that will be in a home for years and grow with the child. It is pricey, but they do have sales so keep an eye out! (This is not an affiliate link – it’s just such a nice product that I have to recommend it).
Ikea DUKTIG Play Kitchen. This is much more reasonably priced and is very customizable. You can find many pinterest links with inspiration to renovate it (although this requires some time and elbow grease, so be prepared!).

Kitchen Food and Accessories. There are so many options to choose from. We personally prefer wooden or fabric toys to plastic. The wooden foods have allowed her to work on cutting skills as well as naming. Here’s some favorites:
DUKTIG Utensils
DUKTIG Vegetable Set
DUKTIG Cinnamon Rolls
Melissa and Doug Cutting Fruit
Wooden Toy Bake-Cookie Mixer Set and Hape Coffee Maker Set (Caution: There are a few smaller pieces in these two sets to keep aside until older. Use parental judgement)

*Montessori note on play kitchens: A lot of Montessori references will note that a “play kitchen” or toddler kitchen should be functional so that they are able to learn. The Pottery Barn Kids kitchen sink is not removable and because of that I would not put water in it as it would be quite difficult to clean. If there is room in the kitchen area of the home and a kitchen that can be modified to be functional is desired (ie: add a water pump or jug, area for supervised cutting and ability to store small kitchen items, I’d go with the Ikea Play Kitchen). If the goal looking towards a more pretend imaginative play option or if the kitchen is in the living room, directly within gaze – I’d consider the Pottery Barn Play Kitchen (We love ours!). One truly cannot go wrong with either. In true anxious mom fashion – I still consider if I got the right one because there are so many pros with both!

Sprout Kids Sous Chef Tower. LOVE this. It is so wonderful to have Poppy and counter height and include her in what’s going on in the kitchen. As she grows older, her ability to help and complete tasks herself only increases. It’s also a great place to contain them close to while actively cooking.

Lovevery Block Set. This block set is beautiful and will grow with the child for years.

Hiking backpack.

 
Rain Boots. We love these boots from Bogs! Poppy is not large and this was the smallest sized rain boots I could find and they did not disappoint due to the excellent quality.

mushie Stacking Cups. Beautiful, functional and reasonably priced. What else could you want??

Safari Ltd. Animal Figurines. These are one of Poppy’s favorite items. We frequently go to the Zoo as a safe outdoor pandemic activity. Having animals at home to learn the names of, the noises they make and associate them with pictures in books as well as those we have seen at the zoo is amazing.

Saranoni Mini Bamboni Blanket. Once she was over 12 months old, we allowed her to sleep with a blanket (Nothing in the crib prior to 12 months of age for safety per the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations.) It’s so soft, light and the perfect size for a lovey.

Books. Reading books is one of our favorite activity. We have endless favorites truly. The new books on Poppy’s list include Little Kids First Book of Why, Press Here, and ABCs of Kindness. Some favorites that are already part of our library (oh boy, was this hard to choose) and will make wonderful gifts include First 100 Box Set, The Pout Pout Fish (Sweet Dreams Pout Pout Fish is amazing too!), Little Blue Truck (Goodnight Little Blue Truck, again, is also amazing!), Giraffes Can’t Dance, Stir Crack Whisk Bake, Everything is Mama, (two great books to get your little one talking) and This is Baby and Llama Llama Red Pajama.

Magazine Subscriptions. These are so great and are so fun to get in the mail monthly (for both the big and little people). It is a very reasonable price for a year’s subscription (as long as you remember to cancel it prior to any auto-renewals. Pro Tip:: Set a reminder on your phone). Our favorite magazine subscription currently is Highlights Hello (recommended for ages 0-2years). Another magazine that gets great reviews is National Geographic Little Kids!

Etsy. What a wonderful website that allows access to small business throughout the globe to many. Two of my favorites are that Arrowhead Designs. We have a wooden sign from this company to accompany Poppy’s Kitchen and add a pop to the decor. It is beautiful and they make so many other fantastic items. The shop WHATKIDSLOVETHEMOST makes beautiful ball pits. My only warning on this item is that is takes up a large amount of space – larger than you may even think.

Enjoy the holidays and don’t stress about the small stuff (physical and emotional). Let’s talk soon,
Al

Photo credit: Caley Dimmock – https://unsplash.com/photos/_HCpwe1-Prc?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditShareLink